Introduction: Copper has been used by people in the form of a wide variety of metals, alloys and compounds, and has been deeply infiltrated into all aspects of production and life, into the 21st century into the rapid development of mankind to achieve an indispensable important metal.

1. Definition of copper

 copper is a chemical element, its chemical symbol is Cu, its atomic number is 29, and it is a transition metal. The most common use of copper is in the manufacture of wire, which is usually made of pure copper, because it is second only to silver in electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity, but much cheaper than silver.

2. Common categories

here are a lot of people who think that copper is just one. It's the only thing. But there are other kinds of copper. For example: Alloy Copper; brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; cupronickel is an alloy of copper and nickel; bronze is an alloy of copper and elements other than zinc and nickel, mainly tin bronze, aluminum bronze, etc. ; Red Copper is copper with a high copper content, the total content of other impurities is less than 1% . 

COPPER PROCESSING MATERIAL CLASSIFICATION: Copper Sulfate, copper chloride, copper bar, copper bar, copper ingot, copper plate, copper wire, copper alloy, copper, copper oxide, copper foil, copper pipe, copper foil, copper mud, copper casting, electrolytic copper, other copper alloy copper. 

With pure copper or copper alloy made into a variety of shapes including bar, wire, plate, strip, strip, tube, foil, collectively referred to as copper. There are rolling, extruding and drawing methods for copper, hot-rolling and cold-rolling for copper plate and Strip, cold-rolling for Strip and foil, extruding and drawing for Tube and Bar, and drawing for wire.

Applications

Applications in the electrical industry

 (1) power transmission power transmission needs a lot of copper with high conductivity, mainly used in power, wire and cable, bus bar, transformer, switch, plug components and connectors. In the transmission of electricity through wires and cables, electrical energy is wasted because the resistance heats up. From the point of view of energy saving and economy, the standard of "the best cable section" is being popularized in the world at present. The Standard of "the best cable section" takes into account both the installation cost and the energy consumption at one time, and enlarges the cable size appropriately, in order to achieve energy conservation and the best comprehensive economic benefits. According to the new standard, the cross-section of the cable is more than double that of the old standard, and the energy-saving effect is about 50% . In the past period of time, because of the shortage of steel and the fact that the proportion of aluminum is only 30% of copper, aluminum has been used to replace copper in overhead high-voltage transmission lines hoping to reduce their weight. At present from the environmental protection consideration, the air transmission line will turn to lay the underground cable. In this case, aluminum is inferior to copper in conductivity and cable size.For the same reason, it is wise to replace the U. S. and Japan's aluminum winding transformers with energy-saving and efficient copper winding transformers. 

(2) motor manufacturing in motor manufacturing, high conductivity and high strength copper alloys are widely used. The main copper parts are the stator, rotor and shaft head, etc. . In large-scale Motor, windings to use water or hydrogen cooling, known as double water internal cooling or hydrogen cooling motor, which requires a large length of hollow wires. Motor is a large user of electric energy, accounting for about 60% of the total power supply. The accumulated electric charge of a motor is very high. It usually reaches the cost of the motor within the first 500 hours of working, which is 4 ~ 16 times of the cost in one year, and 200 times of the cost in the whole working life. The small improvement of motor efficiency can not only save energy, but also achieve significant economic benefits. The development and application of high-efficiency motor is a hot topic in the world. Because of the energy consumption in the motor, it mainly comes from the resistance loss of the windings, so increasing the cross-section of the copper wire is a key measure to develop the high efficiency motor. Compared with traditional motors, some high-efficiency motors which have been developed first in recent years increase the usage of copper windings by 25-100% . Currently, the Department of Energy is funding a development project to produce motor rotors using copper casting technology. 

(3) since the 1980s, communication cables have been widely used to replace copper cables in communication trunk lines due to their high current carrying capacity. But converting electricity into light, as well as into the user's lines, still requires a lot of copper. With the development of communication industry, people rely on communication more and more, the demand for optical fiber cable and copper wire will increase. In recent years, with the improvement of people's living standard and the popularization of household appliances, residential power load is increasing rapidly. The residential electricity consumption of our country still has very big development in the future, this also greatly increased the application of copper wire.

2. The application of electronic industry in electronics industry is a new industry. In the course of its development, new products and new application fields of steel have been developed. At present, its applications have been developed from electronic vacuum devices and printed circuits to microelectronics and semiconductor integrated circuits. 

(1) electro-vacuum devices electro-vacuum devices are mainly high-frequency and ultra-high-frequency transmitting tubes, waveguides and magnetron tubes, which need high purity oxygen-free copper and dispersion-strengthened oxygen-free copper. 

(2) printed circuit copper printed circuit uses copper foil as a surface and pastes it on a plastic board as a support. The wiring diagram of the circuit is printed on a copper plate by means of photography; To remove excess by erosion, leaving interconnected circuits. Then, a complete circuit is assembled by punching the connection between the printed circuit board and the outside, inserting the terminals of the discrete components or other parts, and welding them to this junction. If immersion plating is used, all joints can be welded at one time. Thus, the use of printed circuits can save a great deal of work in wiring and fixing circuits for those occasions that require fine circuit arrangements, such as radios, televisions, computers, etc. . In addition, a variety of low-cost, low melting point, good liquidity of copper-based brazing materials are needed in the connection of the circuit. 

(3) the core of Integrated Circuit Microelectronics Technology is integrated circuit. Integrated Circuit (IC) is a kind of microminiaturized circuit which integrates the components and interconnects of the circuit into the substrate, the surface or the substrate by special technology. Such microcircuits are tens of thousands of times smaller in size and weight than the most compact discrete component circuits. Its appearance caused the huge revolution of the computer and became the foundation of the modern information technology. At present, the number of transistors that can be made on a single chip smaller than a Very-large-scale integration has reached 100,000 or more. IBM, the world's leading computer company, recently made a breakthrough by using copper instead of aluminum in silicon chips as interconnects. The new microchips, made of copper, can achieve 30 percent efficiency gains, reduce circuit wire sizes to 0.12 microns, and allow up to two million transistors to be integrated on a single chip. This opens up a new prospect for the application of the ancient metal copper in the latest field of semiconductor integrated circuits. 

(4) in order to protect the normal operation of the integrated circuit or the hybrid circuit, the lead frame needs to be encapsulated, and a large number of joints in the circuit are drawn out from the sealed body. These leads require a certain strength, constitute the integrated packaging circuit supporting framework, known as the lead frame. In practice, for high speed mass production, the lead frame is usually punched continuously in a specific arrangement on a metal strip. The frame materials account for 1/3 ~ l/4 of the total cost of integrated circuits, and the amount used is very large; therefore, the cost must be low. Copper alloys have low price, high strength, conductivity and thermal conductivity, excellent processing performance, needle welding and corrosion resistance, through alloying can control its performance in a large range, can better meet the performance requirements of the lead frame, has become an important material for the lead frame. It is one of the most widely used materials in microelectronic devices.

Application of energy and petrochemical industry 

(1) energy industry thermal power and atomic power generation rely on steam for work. The steam loop is as follows: The boiler produces steam-steam drives the turbine to do work-steam after work is sent to the condenser-cooled into water-returns to the boiler to be changed back into steam. Meanwhile, the main condenser is composed of a tube sheet and a condenser tube. They are made of pot brass, aluminum brass, or cupronickel because of their good thermal conductivity and resistance to water corrosion. According to the information, 5 tons of condenser tubes are needed for each 1000w installed capacity. A 600,000 kilowatt power plant requires 300 tons of condenser tubes. The use of solar energy also uses a lot of copper pipe. For example, a swimming pool in a hotel near London, England, is equipped with a solar thermal collector to keep the water temperature between 18 and 24 degrees Celsius in the summer. The solar thermal collector contains 784 pounds (356 kilograms) of copper tubing. 

(2) copper and many copper alloys for the petrochemical industry, in aqueous solutions, hydrochloric acid and other non-oxidizing acids, organic acids (such as acetic acid, citric acid, fatty acid, lactic acid, oxalic acid, etc.) , bases other than ammonia, and non-oxidizing organic compounds (such as oils, phenols, alcohols, etc.) , therefore, it is widely used in the petrochemical industry to manufacture all kinds of containers, piping systems, filters, pumps and valves which are in contact with corrosive media. It also makes use of its thermal conductivity, a variety of evaporators, heat exchangers and condensers. Due to the good plasticity of copper, it is especially suitable for the manufacture of heat exchangers with complicated structure and crossed copper tubes in modern chemical industry. In addition, bronze production tools are used in oil refineries; the original is that no sparks are thrown when the impact, which can prevent fires. 

(3) marine industry the oceans cover more than 70% of the earth's surface area, and the rational development and utilization of marine resources have been paid more and more attention. Seawater contains chloride ion which is easy to cause corrosion. Many engineering metal materials such as steel, aluminum and even stainless steel are not resistant to seawater corrosion. In addition to these materials, as well as wood, glass and other non-metallic materials on the surface will also form marine biological pollution. Copper is unique, not only resistant to seawater corrosion, and dissolved in the water of copper ion sterilization, can prevent marine organisms fouling. Therefore, copper and copper alloys are very important materials in marine industry and have been widely used in desalination plants, offshore oil and gas production platforms, and other coastal and submarine facilities. For example, piping systems, pumps and valves used in desalination, as well as equipment used on oil and gas production platforms, including splash zones and underwater bolts, drilling days, anti-fouling sheaths, pump valves and piping systems, etc. 

Source: Tongxinbao

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